


Junk and Disorderly

by cosmotronic



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/F, Mental Health Issues, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:25:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9323483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmotronic/pseuds/cosmotronic
Summary: Cait always pays her debts.  And then there's the other thing, too, the thing that makes Cait stay no matter what.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A little **warning** for some brokenness, hints of depression, obsession.
> 
> Comments and feedback always appreciated.

Cait's never seen anyone pick up as much crap as she does.

The first few times she had picked up pre-war debris, an battered toy car made of tin and a scuffed and dented hubcap and a distinctly dead radio, Cait had thought it wasn’t too much of an problem. It was a reasonable, normal interest in the remnants of her life before, detritus awash in nostalgia. Cait hadn’t shared her wide-eyed excitement or quiet moments of reflection but didn’t begrudge her a few extra minutes on their journey or a few extra pounds in their packs.

She had always collected broken bits of weaponry and electrical parts anyway, for as long as Cait had travelled with her. It was only practical. She had some kind of burgeoning flair for mechanical gadgetry and Cait liked guns and they could always sell or trade anything else that was worth the effort of carrying it. A little bit of treasure hunting here and there hadn’t affect their travels too much. They always arrived at their destinations on time and always had enough caps for a roof and a meal. It never detracted from the purpose, never distracted from the quest, until the quest was failed and the purpose petered out.

Something had changed, in the aftermath. Cait had seen it coming, sensed it as it took hold, failed to understand it. For a while she had clung to Cait in a desperate clinch, but Cait was still wrapped in doubt and uncomfortable with the closeness and fumbled with the right responses and pushed her away. Cait had felt her detach, slowly, sadly and without a struggle, watched her fall into the steady rhythm of doing without feeling.

To Cait it was the quiet that first signalled a change. She talked less and less, rarely initiating conversations, and had followed her path each day as if by rote, a routine unthinking. She'd still pick odd things up, still open rusted lockers and nudge aside debris just in case, but there were fewer little exclamations of surprise, fewer still displays of excitement. Cait carried everything back anyway, back to their home, and for want of any other direction piled it haphazardly about the place, inside and out.

Then there was listless slump of her body as they walked. Every motion seemed to require greater effort, like she was wading through murk, and her heavy sighs suggested sacrifice but there was no indication of energy applied. She would stop sometimes, staring, disconnected, then blink slowly and move on. She'd hang back in fights, too, uncertainty muddying her actions until she'd recklessly break cover or miss a threat and that would piss Cait off, the terrifying scramble to cover her, the panicked dash to protect her.

And Cait had taken a bullet for her. Nothing serious, a bloody chunk ripped from the flesh of an arm that Cait had tried to hide from her. She had seen it anyway and Cait broke and blamed her, been furious and so very, very frustrated. She had cracked just a little bit, raw and naked and open and after that she had stared and sighed and slept for days and Cait had slept next to her, wounded arm tight about her, because Cait hadn't known what else to do.

After a time Cait had woken alone in the middle of the night, their nested space already cold. Cait had found her outside, by a rusted old workbench, staring at a shoulder guard in pieces, immobile and entranced by the deconstruction wrought by their last raider encounter. Cait had slung a blanket around her and pulled her away, back to warmth and comfort. The next night, the same nocturnal wandering, the same look. Cait hadn’t intervened this time, had looked on as she had slowly settled into place before the bench and taken the twisted metal in her hands.

She had whispered to Cait after a pregnant moment, the first sounds she had spoken in two days.

“I think I’d like to stay here for a bit.”

Cait had smiled, nodded and replied with exaggerated offhandedness. Cait had watched her for a while, watched for any sign of distress, then left her to hammer and bash and tinker while Cait sat and frowned and tried to comprehend, until she had come to grab Cait's hand and their guns and drag them outside, pointing to a distant, derelict township haloed by the rising dawn. She had needed parts, thought there might be a workshop or factory in the far-off ruins and Cait had gone with her good-naturedly, gladly, needing to believe in the renewed spark of life. The spark was small, so Cait had thrust everything at it, breathed encouragements over it, willed her flame to flicker brighter.

It had been brighter for a while, Cait remembers, even if the flame never grew much beyond dull embers. To see her once again possessed by energy, once again burdened with purpose, it was as though Cait's world had been lit with a thousand life-giving suns, even if that purpose was only to distract from failure.

The distraction had grown from a cure to a cancer so slowly, insidiously. Cait had noticed but had denied it significance, let it grow unchecked.

Now, when they aren’t working, when they aren’t running courier packages or clearing out nests of critters or shooting bandits for caps, she goes scavenging. When they don’t need to reach a certain point, a certain place, she goes exploring. She calls it _hunting_ and she spends too long rooting through ruin and wreckage, and carries far too much back to their small home. Cait goes with her, because that’s what Cait does now, and stands sentinel while she searches, picking up some items and kicking others aside. Whether on a whim or working to some criteria known only to her, Cait doesn’t care. Cait grumbles and gripes and waits and finally loads their packs with burnt and broken things, until the straps bruise their flesh and bend their backs.

On one trip, they had so much weight pressing them down that Cait had petulantly suggested that next time, she might like to bring a brahmin along with her instead. And lord almighty, she had actually paused to consider it before shaking her head smartly.

“Cost too much to feed. And they smell.”

Cait had snorted, swore and stood powerless as the comforting malignancy pushed aside their pretence at normality.

She doesn't eat enough now, she doesn't sleep enough, they never take jobs any more. Their home is full of components, tools, junk and still they go searching for more and drag it all back, still she hammers and bashes and tinkers and disassembles, reassembles, destroys and creates with thin purpose. Still she comes to Cait and still Cait picks up her gun and goes along, her own purpose wearing thinner.

Cait had nearly snapped on one particularly tiresome trip out, not for the first time and not for the last. No more hunks of junk or little pieces of pre-war crap. It had to end, Cait had to make her see. There had been a dullness in her eyes, achingly familiar, and a defensive shadow cast over her face when Cait had plucked a crippled servo joint from her hands and waved it in front of her, questioning, demanding. She had looked dumbly, stupidly at the prize in Cait’s hand and looked at the horde in her own arms and worried at her lip and tried to convince Cait. But the words had come out all uncertain and stilted and weak.

“Um. I thought I could. You know. Use it. Make, no. To mend something?”

Not at all like the bright, confident woman who had saved Cait's soul and had tried to save the world and Cait had pressed the point and thought that was what winning an argument must be like, but Cait had hated the cost of the small, hollow victory.

Cait remembers another woman in the same perfect shell, a woman with easy charisma and persuasive aura who had explained to Cait that she was once a lawyer. From what Cait can gather old world law just seems like a fancy way of having an argument. Or, rather, getting someone else – a lawyer like her – to have the argument for you. Considering that was what this woman used to do to put food on the table, she does a lousy job at winning this on-again off-again argument. Though it had been hardly much of an argument this time, halted with particular finality when the shooting had started and she had dropped her armfuls with a clatter that set Cait to swearing.

She had fought, popped a raider between the eyes with feral recklessness and messy luck and once again Cait remembers another woman, one who barely knew one end of a rifle from another, but had battled on with fierce hope and bitter determination to save a tiny life. That woman is gone, replaced with an addict guarding her stash.

Cait had regretted the harsh words once the shooting was over, when Cait watched her toe through her fragmented and scattered treasures, a small woman so sad and frustrated and alone. In the end Cait had crouched beside her and taken her hand, tugging until she let herself be pulled down. They knelt together and Cait had helped her shove everything into two bulging packs, motions sharp and exasperated, face turned away to hide the conflict.

Cait just doesn't understand any of it, how she could have been so strong one moment and be so fragile and bent the next. Cait stares at her own scarred knuckles, at the track marks in her own arms and wonders if she had understood any of it either, when Cait was fragile and bent and she was strong. Cait wonders if it was just softness that had made her stay with Cait back then, wonders if they are both soft now, wonders if it is okay to spend the rest of a lifetime wondering.

She had saved Cait's life and Cait knows she must pay her debt a thousand times over, but this is not that. Cait pays her debts, always, but this is the other thing. The other thing that ties Cait to this broken treasure and helps pick up the pieces over and over and over. The thing that makes Cait's heart thunder and lurch and soar and shatter. Cait isn't sure why this thing hurts so much, but she thinks it might be love anyway.

Though it's anger more than love that draws Cait to her late at night, when she sits hunched over the workbench, shivering in the cold but not noticing, straining her eyes in the small beam of the flashlight but too engrossed in her work to care. She doesn’t always deign to speak when Cait interrupts her labours, hardly notices when Cait brings her a blanket or food and it pisses Cait off.

Cait always waits as long as she can bear. Cleans their guns and counts their caps and gives her enough time to make progress on whatever holds her attention tonight. When Cait goes to her, in the thick black night, it is with the small hope that she will put down her tools and be with Cait instead. Maybe they can spar, or shoot, or get blind drunk. Maybe they can play cards, laughing and smiling when Cait lets her win. Maybe they can lie entwined together under a blanket, all warm and peaceful, a comfort that clean, clear-headed Cait finds herself irrationally craving along with honesty and commitment and all manner of new, soft things. Maybe they can talk.

It's a small, hopeless hope. At first, Cait would try all sorts to get her attention, to be favoured with more than a sideways glance.

When Cait had tried to help, once or twice or every now and then, it had been embarrassing, inept. Cait can poke around the inner workings of a weapon or two but doesn’t have the skill or imagination or goddamn fanaticism needed to understand even a half of what is being bolted together before her. She had glanced at Cait with a suffering, soft smile and a pointed look and Cait knows now that while such motives are appreciated – in that tiny part of her soul that still acknowledges Cait's presence – the efforts are not required.

Cait brings her food that remains uneaten, blankets that slip from her shoulders to lie unappreciated in the dust. Cait tempts her with soft touches that may as well be spectres from another life. Nipping at her ear and teasing fingers beneath her shirt and pressing open mouthed kisses to her neck, it's been so very long since the last time.

The last time, when Cait had kissed her silly and fucked her senseless on the bench and it was good, but she had been even more distant afterwards and let Cait know in silent, certain terms that sex was for beds – and occasionally chairs and walls and floors – not here. Cait had spent the rest of the night sorting tiny electrical parts into little boxes, having carelessly knocked them to the ground in desperate lust.

Cait hadn't gone to her the next night. She hadn't even noticed; Cait recalls being so sure of that. Sure enough that Cait had left their home, left her. Sad and frustrated and alone Cait had gathered her scant possessions and slipped away just before dawn. Cait hadn’t gotten far, hadn’t meant to really, before she had come racing down the dusty road and embraced Cait so tightly they both had bruises the next day. Her feet had been bare, Cait remembers, her face tear-tracked and stricken.

Cait had been so sure and so wrong. She notices, _needs_ , so now when Cait goes it's with the assurance of a swift return. Cait’s writing is amateur, with not enough words that work so there isn’t a note, but Cait will forget to take her second-favourite weapon or will leave two cups out in hope next to a bottle of brandy. Cait has to go, has to run as a courier or kill bandits, because she is suffocating in their home that has become a trap, but mostly because they have to eat and their caps won't last forever.

Cait knows it shouldn't be fed, whatever this fixation is that grips her, but still each time brings her something back, a broken weapon or some antique piece of electronics.

Last time it was a sensor, damaged and dead but unusual in its design. She had taken it from Cait’s outstretched arm without a word, unscrewed the casing and threw it aside, pulled out a tiny circuit board. Her brow furrowed, her lips moved soundlessly and then she had looked up at Cait with wide, adoring eyes and a brilliant, spontaneous smile that Cait hadn't really known how to respond to.

Cait wonders if any words would be the right words to say, if anything Cait can do would be the right thing to do.

She would know all the right words and all the right actions, Cait knows, Cait remembers. Cait remembers being hopped up on psycho and feeling the thrill of the fight, seeing the red wash over itchy eyes and screaming through the pain when it clears. Cait remembers the need to destroy and thinks that maybe there’s a parity here.

Except that instead of destruction, the other woman surrounds herself in base things and creates. She’s a mother and these purposeless distractions, these half-formed ideas made real are her children. It’s wondrous and extraordinary and sick and frightening, this comfort that has grown into an obsession, an addiction.

Cait remembers a gentle word and a soft touch and nights of silent vigil, in another life. Cait remembers through a mirror, and she thinks she knows.

Cait doesn't try and get her attention tonight, until she is ready. Cait's tried it all and knows there's nothing to be done, nothing to be said, until she is ready. Cait doesn't go, either, just watches her, until she is ready.

She’s working herself up to say something, Cait can see. She pauses and almost turns to Cait, then her shoulders slump a little further and she returns to fiddling with a trigger mechanism for long minutes. The tension builds again and now Cait can see the play of her jaw muscles, a small twitch in her cheek, then she rubs her nose, her face and gestures vaguely off to one side.

“Made that for you. Um. For your gun.”

There’s a small mountain of parts on the worktop, a couple of tools and a custom reflex sight for Cait's second-favourite gun. It’s perfect, in a way. Welded together from treasure and junk and heart and soul and sadness. Cait doesn’t thank her. It’s not the first gift given, not the first apology unsaid, not the first misfired shot for Cait’s approval, Cait’s understanding, Cait’s acceptance, but Cait holds the mod tightly, reverently and sits and watches her some more, and wonders.

There’s a beautiful sort of serenity in the sure movements and small frown and the way her tongue peeks out the corner of her mouth, a flash of teeth in moments of triumph. There’s something heartbreaking in the murmured curses and nonsense mutterings and tiny, impotent rages when things don’t quite fit as they should.

And there’s a moment that will come later tonight, when the sun is a pink anticipation below the horizon and the frustrated huffs are too frequent, when she will stop. She will leave her work in bits and pieces and stand up straight and notice Cait and _need_. And Cait will gather her into a warm blanket and rub her stiff shoulders and take her to bed, to be smothered in soft comfort for an hour or two. It's not okay and Cait still won't know how to make it okay, but it's what they have.

And it'll be a little better than what they had yesterday.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something spun off from when I used to play Fallout 2 as high-int, low-char and roleplay _connective difficulties_ rather than _dickhead intellectual_. Neurodivergent survivor doesn't really work in Fallout 4 (too much backstory), but newly-broken survivor does, hence the shift to more of a depression/obsession piece.


End file.
